The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

by Jackie Ashenden

  All this time it had been him.

  She didn’t want to reveal the depths of her desperation and yet she couldn’t stop pressing herself against him, arching into the heat and muscled power of his body, letting him kiss her and trying to kiss him in return. She didn’t know how, but she didn’t let that stop her, beyond self-consciousness now as she touched her tongue to his, tasting him as he tasted her.

  He muttered something in Arabic that she didn’t understand, and she thought for one dreadful moment that he was going to push her away again, because he took his mouth from hers. But then his arms were around her and she was being lifted up into them, held tight against his chest as he turned and strode from the courtyard into the cool airiness of the salon.

  He moved across the room and over to one of the low couches, putting her onto it, then without a word he followed her down and she found herself pinned beneath one immensely powerful, hot, muscled male body.

  His hands were on the cushions on either side of her head, his intense gaze boring down into hers, the heat and weight of him that pressed on her exciting beyond words.

  ‘Well?’ His voice was all raw, masculine demand. ‘Do you want me, little fury?’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HER EYES HAD gone the most glorious shade of copper-gold and her body beneath his was so small and soft and warm. He had to be careful with her and the roundness where his child lay, but it was so very difficult to remember to be careful. So very difficult when she was beneath him and he could see how passionate she was, so much emotion hidden beneath her spiky, prickly surface. So much hunger, too; he could see that clearly on her face.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. That had been a mistake, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself and, since she hadn’t stopped him either, he’d simply taken it. And she’d tasted glorious, hot and sweet and like everything he’d been forbidden when he was young. Everything he’d forbidden himself as an adult.

  So why couldn’t he have it now? He’d never had enough warmth, never enough softness. He’d never had enough sweetness, either. He’d denied himself for a long time, not wanting to rouse the deep passions that he knew lay within himself. Passions that were dangerous. Yet he’d had years of experience now at controlling himself, so why shouldn’t he let them out? And this woman wasn’t someone else’s, the way his mother had always been someone else’s. This woman was his and his alone.

  She was challenging, exciting. He’d thought her fragile and not suited to the desert initially, but maybe he’d been wrong to think that way. She certainly had a will that wasn’t fragile, that might even be strong enough to match his own, and right now he couldn’t think of a single reason not to take her. Especially when she was clearly as hungry as he was.

  She was shaking and breathing very fast, her small hands pressed to his chest. Her eyes were wide and fixed to his, glittering with desire and an obvious desperation that made something catch hard in his chest. That made him wonder where such desperation had come from and why, and who it was that had left her so hungry.

  ‘Yes,’ she said huskily. ‘I do want you.’ Her fingers curled in his T-shirt. ‘Please...oh, please...’

  Did she know what she was asking for? What she was desperate for? Perhaps she didn’t; that kiss of hers had been inexperienced, after all. Not that it mattered, since he’d already decided that he’d have her, and if it hadn’t been her kiss that had convinced him, certainly the way she clutched him, begged him, all that desperate hunger in her eyes had.

  Someone had neglected her, someone hadn’t given her what she needed, and so since he’d laid claim to her, he would. He’d show her exactly what she was so desperate for.

  It’s not just sex and you know it.

  Oh, yes, he was well aware. There was a familiarity to her hunger that made something echo inside his own soul, that made him think of long ago when he’d been a boy, watching his mother hug his half-brother. His half-brother who got all the love and the warmth and the softness, while Nazir got nothing but bare earth and rocks, the long hard marches in the depths of the night and his father’s cold, harsh attention.

  He knew what it was like to want more than that. To want more and never get it.

  Well, he would have it now.

  ‘Do you want me to take you?’ he asked roughly, watching the flush sweep up her slender neck and over her delicate features. ‘Right here? Right now?’

  ‘Yes...no...’ She took a shuddering breath, shifting restlessly beneath him as if she was trying to get even closer, making him curse under his breath as the soft heat between her thighs pressed against his aching shaft. ‘I don’t know... Oh...’ Her fingers spread out on his chest, kneading him like a little cat. ‘You’re...you’re so warm, Mr Al Rasul,’ she murmured as if this were the greatest discovery. ‘And... I’m so cold.’

  The soft words made the constriction in his chest get even tighter. Why was she cold? It made no sense, not with all this heat they were generating between them. And she wasn’t cold herself, no, she was like a shard of desert sun, bright, searing and hot. Ready to burn.

  He shifted on her, so his weight wasn’t crushing her. ‘My name is Nazir. Say it.’

  ‘N-Nazir...’

  The sound was husky and sweet, making every muscle in his body clench in sudden and intense need.

  He bent and brushed his mouth over hers, settling himself more fully between her thighs, pressing the hard length of his sex into all that damp heat. She gasped and arched beneath him, her hips lifting against his, her fingers curling into his T-shirt. He nuzzled her jaw and then kissed his way down her throat, tasting the soft hollow where her pulse beat frantically beneath her silky skin.

  She was so responsive, lifting her chin to allow him access, a soft little moan escaping as he pressed his mouth there and then his tongue. He’d never wanted to linger over the taste of a woman’s skin, but he could see the appeal now. He could strip her bare, lay her out, lick every sweet inch of her body... Not yet, though. She was restless and desperate, and it was driving the same desperation in him, and he had to be careful. Gentleness wasn’t something he was familiar with, but gentleness was what she needed because, after all, she was pregnant and delicate and breakable.

  It would be like disarming the mines on one of his father’s training operations when he’d been dropped into an old minefield in the south and had to find his way across in order to escape. He’d had to go carefully, watching every footstep, and what he hadn’t been able to avoid, he’d had to disarm, manipulating the mechanisms with slow, patient care.

  Yes, he could do that with Ivy. Except he didn’t want to disarm her. He wanted her to explode.

  He bit the side of her neck carefully, making her shudder, then moved on over to the soft swell of her breasts. The fabric of her T-shirt was thin, revealing the rapidly hardening outline of her nipples, and he took one in his mouth, sucking on her through the material. She gave a soft cry, writhing beneath him, the movements of her hips against his aching groin sending sharp bolts of pleasure through him, making him want to hold her down, take her fast and hard.

  He ignored the urge. She was a mine, an unexploded bomb, and needed care, not roughness and impatience.

  He sucked harder on her at the same time as he pushed a hand down between her thighs, cupping her through the stretchy material of her yoga pants.

  She trembled and when his thumb brushed over the sensitive little bud between her legs, she trembled even harder. Lifting his head from her breast, he looked down into her flushed face, watching her response as he slowly brushed his thumb back and forth and then around, giving her the friction she needed, feeling the place where his hand lay get hotter and wetter.

  Her eyes fluttered closed, long, silky lashes lying on her rosy cheeks. ‘Oh...yes...’ The words came out on a sigh. ‘Oh... N-Nazir...’

  Hot little woman. Desperate little woman. He wanted to
give her what she needed. He wanted to be the only one who could give her what she needed.

  The possessiveness that lay at his heart surged up inside him and he shifted again, ripping away her yoga pants and underwear, baring her for his touch. Then he slid his hand between her thighs once again, his finger stroking over slick, slippery flesh. She cried out, gripping onto his shoulders, twisting under him, and he wanted to kiss her, to taste those cries of pleasure for himself, and yet he wanted to watch her too. He wanted to see what kind of passion he could unleash in her, because there was already so much of it. And he wanted it all for himself.

  So he lay there, staring down at her face, his hand moving slowly, exploring her slick heat as she moaned and twisted beneath his touch. There was no shame to her, no hiding, no holding back. She’d abandoned herself utterly to the pleasure and it was the most mesmerising thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.

  He ached to have her hands on him, to have her mouth on him, but his control felt thin and tenuous, as if he couldn’t quite hold onto it, which might have disturbed him if he’d thought about it. But he didn’t think about it. Nothing was more important than her pleasure in this moment, than her hunger and how he would feed it, drive it higher, and then satisfy it in a way that no one else could.

  He slipped one careful finger inside her, then another, feeling the tight, wet heat of her body grip him. She gasped, another low moan escaping her, arching up as he slid his fingers deeper. Setting up a gentle slide in and out with one hand, he pushed her T-shirt up with the other, exposing the practical white cotton of her bra. He pulled that aside, baring her breasts, her skin milky, her nipples a pretty dusky pink. Lowering his head, he circled one with his tongue, teasing her and making her gasp before sucking it into his mouth.

  Then he worked her with his fingers and his tongue, using the trembling of her body and the soft cries she made as his guide, stoking her pleasure higher and higher.

  Ivy clutched at him, writhed beneath him, making the ache in his groin more intense. Making him want to tear the T-shirt from her body, thrust her legs apart and take her roughly and hard. And he would do that. Eventually. For now, though, he’d take his time, he’d be careful with her, stoking her pleasure lazily because it was good to have her beg him. Good to have her pleading. Good to have his name in her mouth as she clutched at him and demanded more.

  It was good to have her desperate for him and he wanted to enjoy that for as long as physically possible.

  She was such a passionate little thing though and she didn’t last as long as he would have liked. He brushed his thumb over the hard bud between her thighs at the same time as he thrust deep with his fingers, and she went suddenly stiff, her whole body arching. A shaken cry escaped her and she convulsed as the orgasm swept over her.

  He didn’t take his hands away immediately. He stroked her, easing her down until her trembling had begun to fade, then he put his hands on the cushions on either side of her head and looked down into her flushed face.

  ‘I didn’t know.’ The brilliant copper of her gaze was full of wonder and she stared back as if she’d never seen anything like him before. ‘I didn’t know it would be like that.’

  The tightness in his chest returned and he couldn’t place the feeling. It was almost like sympathy, or pity, or regret, he wasn’t sure which. Something to do with the wonder on her face and her passionate response, and how it seemed obvious that someone in her life had neglected her and neglected her terribly.

  But then, as his research had shown him, she’d grown up in a children’s home and had no family. She’d had no one at all except the friend for whom she’d offered to be a surrogate and now that friend was gone.

  She’s alone, like you.

  The tightness wrapped around him and squeezed. Ah, but he wasn’t alone, not any more. He commanded men. He had his half-brother dependent on the money he brought him. He had power. He wanted for nothing.

  He wasn’t the Sultana’s neglected bastard any more.

  ‘You’re a virgin, aren’t you?’ He watched her face, enjoying how unguarded she was in this moment. As she had been with the gardener just before, alight with interest and curiosity. He’d wanted her to be that way with him and now she was, and he relished the satisfaction of it.

  ‘You guessed?’ A crease appeared between her brows. ‘I suppose it was obvious. But...what gave it away?’

  Unexpected amusement coiled inside him. ‘A few things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’m not really in the mood to have a conversation about that.’ He shifted against her, pressing his hard, aching sex against the soft heat between her thighs. ‘We’re not finished.’

  Her eyes went very round. ‘Oh...’

  She was so pretty and the scent of her body, jasmine and a delicate musk, was making that desire, that powerful possessive drive, almost impossible to restrain.

  He leaned down, brushing his mouth over hers in another kiss. ‘I’m going to take you, little fury,’ he murmured, because he wanted her to be very clear about what was going to happen between them. And what it would mean for her. ‘And once I do, you’ll be mine. And it’ll be for ever, because what’s mine stays mine. Do you understand?’

  She shivered, a painfully vulnerable expression crossing her face. ‘Why? Why do you want me to be yours? You don’t even know me. If I weren’t pregnant with your child, you wouldn’t even have looked twice at me.’

  For once there was no anger in her voice, only a painful note that somehow pierced him like an arrow. She was totally genuine; he could see it in her eyes. She really had no idea why he would want her.

  It’s a valid question. And she’s right, you barely know her.

  Oh, but he would. And what he did know, what he’d seen in the interactions they’d had already, was that her spirit and her will called to him in a way he hadn’t experienced with another woman. Yes, he couldn’t deny that the baby had triggered something in him, but it was her who’d deepened that connection. Her and that stubborn spirit of hers that had made him want.

  ‘If you weren’t pregnant with my child, you wouldn’t be here.’ He shifted his hands, cupping her face between them, adjusting his weight so she could feel the pressure of him, the solidity of him surrounding her, yet not be crushed. ‘And if you weren’t the most stubborn, the most aggravating, the most passionate woman I’ve ever met, you wouldn’t be lying on the couch right now with your legs apart and me on top of you.’

  A deep red flush swept over her. ‘Don’t lie. Don’t say things you don’t mean.’

  ‘I never say things I don’t mean and I never lie.’ He curled his fingers into the soft chestnut of her hair, holding her gaze so she could see the truth. ‘Why would you think I would?’

  * * *

  His stare was so direct and Ivy felt naked. And not just literally. Somehow his touch and the pleasure he’d given her had stripped all her emotional armour from her too, and she didn’t know how to put it back on.

  She shouldn’t have exposed herself by asking him why he’d ever want someone like her, as if it mattered, as if she cared in any way what he thought of her.

  As if you want him to want you.

  Well, she couldn’t lie to herself, not now. She did want him to want her, and it was perfectly obvious that he did. She could feel the evidence of that pressing against the tender flesh between her legs, where he’d touched and stroked and brought her to the most incredible climax.

  She could feel the echo of it through her body now, in the flashes of pleasure that made her shiver and shake. God, she’d never felt anything like it. All she’d wanted was to get as close to him as she possibly could, have him relieve the intense, maddening ache, and he had. His kiss had blinded her, his touch overwhelming her. Sex had always seemed vaguely messy and a little distasteful to her, certainly nothing worth bothering about, and yet the way the Sheikh�
��no, Nazir—had run his hands over her, touched her... Well, suffice to say her views on it had changed.

  But she didn’t like how emotional it had made her, how the simple feel of his fingers twined in her hair, his gaze searching hers as he told her things that couldn’t possibly be true, made her eyes fill with tears.

  Stubborn and aggravating, he’d called her, and yet those things hadn’t sounded like flaws. Passionate didn’t sound like a flaw either. No, he’d said them as if they were things he liked, things he thought were desirable, and then looked surprised when she’d accused him of lying. She should never have said that. Because telling him the truth, that no one had ever wanted her, no one had ever found anything remotely desirable in her so why would he, felt as if it was stripping all the protections from her soul and opening it up for his perusal. And his judgment.

  She didn’t know why she cared. She didn’t know why she cared that he wanted her. None of this should affect her emotionally and yet it did, and she didn’t want it to. What she wanted was more of that heat, more of that intense, incredible pleasure, not more discussion.

  I’m going to take you... And once I do, you’ll be mine. And it will be for ever...

  That had scared her; she couldn’t deny it. And not because she didn’t want to be his, but because she had a terrible feeling that she did. That she might tell herself she’d been quite happy no one had ever adopted her, but the truth was that, in her heart of hearts, she’d always wanted to belong to someone. And it was a constant wound in her soul that no one had ever chosen her.

  Except he had. And a part of her wanted to surrender to him, wanted to be his. Yet she knew it wasn’t really her that he wanted, but the baby she carried. He didn’t feel anything for her but protectiveness because she was pregnant, possessiveness because he was territorial, and lust because he was a man.